Tuesday, March 08, 2011

That's Entertainment

Here are some more pics of Union Station.

So, today I want to talk a little bit about my Megabus experience. For those of you who don't know, the Megabus is a handy little way to get from certain places to other certain places, quickly and cheaply. It cost us about what we would have paid in gas, but we didn't have to drive in Chicago and got there in about 3 hours and 50 minutes. not bad.

There is pretty much any kind of person on the Megabus. On the way there, we saw an older, seemingly fairly wealthy couple (judging by their clothes and the rock on her finger) as well as plenty of students and also Chicago inhabitants. So, with all those different kinds of folk in a small space, there are bound to be culture clashes.

On the way to Chicago, K. and I sat next to a very geeky guy from Des Moines, who was obsessed with his cell phone and would talk loudly about it to anyone who would listen...Or anyone who was just there. Once we got to downtown Chicago, the Des Moines guy kept saying dorky things like, "We don't have one of those in Des Moines," or "Hey, that looks like the Family Matters neighborhood." At one point he took a pic with his phone and said, "I need to get this on Facebook, right NOW...."

To which, the African American Chicago native sitting behind him said, "You might want to wait to do that until you get off the bus and can take pic of something better. You do know that's a parking garage, right? Yeah. you're gonna see plenty of those." Hilarious.

And yes, Bro-In-Law, it is where they filmed that one scene in the Untouchables.

Going home on Megabus wasn't quite as entertaining...Unless you count being scared shitless as entertainment. K. and I both commented on how unhealthy the bus driver looked the minute we saw him. He was one of those older guys who look 9 months pregnant and almost assuredly had diabetes and a bad heart. He also coughed up some powerful sounding loogies the whole way home (EW!).

Anyway, after we were safely in Iowa, I looked over at the driver and realized he was shaking something fierce. I tried to reassure myself that he was probably just moving with the vibrations of the bus, but it was way more exaggerated than that. Then, when it started to rain, it took him a long time to turn on the windshield wipers. I tried to turn my head away and stop my worst case scenario thoughts like, "He's having a seizure." Or, "He's having a heart attack", or "Holy crap! We're all gonna die!" But then we suddenly started to swerve to the side of the road as an ambulance passed us on the interstate. Soon after, another presumed Megabus employee in a uniform walked up right behind the bus driver and watched him for a bit. He then moved into the seat directly behind the driver and quietly asked, "Bob, are you okay?" I couldn't hear the bus driver's response, but he stopped shaking and the other employee sat behind him the whole rest of the way to Iowa City. Weird, huh?